


Lost But For Her Touch

by flipflop_diva



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-10
Updated: 2013-11-10
Packaged: 2018-01-01 01:10:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1038556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/pseuds/flipflop_diva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world where you feel lost and alone, sometimes you find comfort in the most unlikely places. For Katniss Everdeen, that comfort comes in the form of a friend she didn't know she had. Set after Mockingjay, between Katniss' trial and Peeta's return to District 12.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost But For Her Touch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Diaphenia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diaphenia/gifts).



> Thank you for all your prompts, Diaphenia! This went in sort of a different direction than I had originally intended, but I hope you like it!

I don’t remember much about the time after _it_ happened. It’s as though the act of taking a life also took mine. I suppose it’s better that way, not having to remember people’s reactions and comments and words, not having to face what I did, even if I would do it again and again, over and over. Most of all, it’s better not to remember the pain of those days. 

I’m sure during all those days that when I closed my eyes, I saw Prim. I saw blond hair and big eyes, and I saw her die. Over and over and over. 

I’m sure I saw that every time I closed my eyes, even though I don’t remember, because I still see that now.

But as for that time, what I do remember is blurred and fuzzy, as though I am remembering my life through someone else’s eyes. I remember a heaviness in my chest and an ache where my heart should be and I remember sitting and staring.

I’m sure people came and talked to me, I’m sure time passed by as it always does, but I don’t remember it. I struggle now to remember it and there is only one thing I can recall.

_Her._

Sometimes I don’t know if she was real or if I imagined her, but through the haze of my memories, I can see her, see her dark hair, see her dark eyes. Sometimes I can hear her voice — no words that I can make out but a soft murmur echoing all around me like a cocoon. Sometimes I can feel her hand — a cool touch on my shoulder, on my hand, on my hair. Mostly it’s just a feeling when I imagine her there. Feeling, for a moment, like I’m safe.

She doesn’t come to see me when I leave. I don’t expect her to. I still think maybe she isn’t real.

So back I go. Home. Except it doesn’t feel like home, not anymore. It feels foreign, like a stranger. Or maybe the stranger is me. Maybe it is me who doesn’t belong.

I’m not sure, but I also don’t have the energy to care. So I don’t. Instead, I just sit and stare and wait for time to click by — time, which doesn’t seem to be working right anymore. Sometimes a day will feel like a year, sometimes a week will feel like a minute.

I don’t know what is what anymore, what is up, what is down, what is real, what is not.

I see no one, except Haymitch, who sometimes shows up and smiles drunkenly at me but leaves when I don’t answer. Until one day when she shows up, out of nowhere. For a second, I think she must not be real, think I must be dreaming.

But she comes toward me and touches my hand and I know she is real. She doesn’t say anything — doesn’t tell me why she’s here, doesn’t ask me how I’m doing — just sits down beside me. I don’t say a word either. I ache to ask her why she’s here, how she knew, but I don’t. Maybe I don’t want to know. Maybe it just doesn’t matter.

She stays for two days, just sitting beside me. We do everything in silence — sit, eat, go to sleep. But when she gets up to leave, I smile at her, something I haven’t managed to do in months, and I hope she knows how much I appreciate her.

She comes back a few weeks later. And then comes back a few weeks after that. We still barely talk, but when she leaves, I thank her for coming.

The fourth time she comes, she doesn’t sit down beside me like she normally does. Instead she holds out her hand to me.

“Show me around,” she says.

I know she means District 12, and I want to say no, but instead I find myself saying yes. So I do. I show her around, show her where the places I used to love used to be, show her where the people I used to love used to be. 

I manage to hold it all together, to stay locked in my numbness, until we get to where my old house used to stand. And then I can’t deal. I am crumpling to the ground, silent tears falling.

She grabs me, holds me close, cradles me. It’s an unusual feeling, to be constrained so by another human, but there is something about the warmth of her flesh, the strength of her arms, the knowledge that she doesn’t do this for just anyone.

I let her hold me. I let her lead me back to my house. And there I let her heal me. With her touch, with her hold, with her lips. She touches her lips to mine, warms them with her warmth, breathes air into my chest. 

Her lips create a warmth within my chest that spreads to the rest of my body. Her lips travel down my neck, across my collarbones, behind my ears. Everywhere she touches heals under lips.

She stops after a while and makes to leave. It must be past time for her to go. But I reach out, clasp her wrist, manage two words: “Don’t go.”

Johanna complies. She slides down beside me, wraps her arms around her. And I let her.

She leaves in the morning, but this time I know she will come back. Before she does, though, the nightmares come back first.

I think the nightmares may have started right after _it_ happened, but I don’t know. They have been faint since I arrived home, though. Until now. As if seeing the spot where my house used to stand, where my family used to reside, has awaken all the demons.

I dream about Prim, about fires and explosions, and blood and death. I wake up shaking and throwing up and I can’t make it go away. I get lost in my head, trapped by my own fears. I am feeling like I will not make it through. Until the morning, I open my eyes to see Johanna’s staring back at me.

She knows without asking. She knows I need her to heal me. And she does. She places her lips on mine, warms my body, and then she begins to spread the warmth. Across my face, across my chest, across my arms. My body is cold, but she is warm, so I let her open my nightclothes, remove my undergarments. 

She presses her lips to my stomach, to my breasts, between my legs.

I feel a fire start to burn in my stomach as she heals me, a fire that burns stronger and stronger until it consumes me and I am warm and content in her arms.

It becomes a new ritual. She still leaves, but she returns, and each time she does, she heals me. She teaches me how to heal her, too, and I do.

“Stay,” I whisper to her one night as we lie in each other’s arms. She has been quieter than normal. I know there is something she isn’t telling me, and a knot of despair forms in my stomach.

“I can’t,” she finally says.

“Why not?” I ask.

“I don’t belong here,” she says.

“You could belong,” I say.

“Peeta will be back,” she tells me.

“He might not be.”

“I heard a rumor. It could be any day now.”

I don’t say anything. I know what this means. I try not to care, but the knot in my stomach grows and grows until it tries to choke me.

“Will I see you again?” I finally ask.

“Of course,” she says, and she actually smiles. “You’ll marry, probably have children, but I’ll come by, once or twice a year, just as a friend, I’ll say, because we’ve been through a lot, but when no one is looking, you and I, we’ll sneak off to a quiet room, we’ll have our moment.”

I’m not sure if I believe her, but I nod as though I do.

“One more time before you leave?” I say.

She nods. “Of course,” she says. 

It’s the last words she says before she presses her lips to mine and presses her body to mine. In the morning when I awake, she is gone.

Peeta shows up that afternoon.

I never tell him about Johanna. 

He never asks. 

She never comes to visit.

I never stop hoping she will.


End file.
